An incorrect performance date was listed in the print and initial online versions of this story. The error has been corrected online.

Lewis Cleale currently is playing - occasionally singing - five roles in "The Book of Mormon" on Broadway.

Still, he's perfectly pleased that he'll be singing in Stockton on Saturday and Sunday.

"For me," Cleale said. "I love it. If I could just do this, I would just do this."

That will be joining two other Broadway Tenors - David Burnham and John Cudia - in singing a Valentine Pops concert with the Stockton Symphony at Delta College's Atherton Auditorium.

"For me, it's just a thrill," said Cleale, 45, following a recent "Book of Mormon" rehearsal two blocks from his Manhattan, N.Y., residence. "You've gotta become your own story. Nothing really changes. It just ups everything emotionally when you look over and see three or four string basses.

"The sound is so rich, you feel you sound like (Frank) Sinatra or Judy Garland with a big orchestra. It's really rare for a non-star singer like me."

Cleale, Burnham and Cudia sing 20 Broadway and pop tunes/medleys while Peter Jaffe conducts the orchestra during a two-hour concert.

It's not that Cleale - who never thought he'd make it from tiny Houlton, Maine (pop: 6,476), to the big-time - isn't bored by being in the cast of a major Broadway production.

Doing eight shows a week for two years, though, can become kind of routine: "It's my day job. They own me."

In "Book of Mormon," he portrays Jesus, Joseph Smith (who founded Mormonism), a missionary president from Salt Lake City, Utah, the lead character's father and a missionary "training guy."

As Smith, he raps during "The All-American Prophet." He also sings "You're Making Things Up Again," addressed to a "kind of schlubby guy."

It's his sixth Broadway production. Times - and tunes - are changing. Financial constraints have reduced orchestras to just 10 or 11 players. There are 60 musicians in the Stockton Symphony.

"Having a string section is considered such a luxury," said Cleale. "It's much, much, much more sound. Just a rich, full sound."

Cleale has appeared in six other the Broadway productions, including the ultra-hip "Spamalot" (as Sir Galahad, the Black Knight and others), "Once Upon a Mattress" and "Swinging on a Star." This is different.

"Although there's not as much singing as I'd like," Cleale said. "As much as anything it's a fantastic place to be. The writing is so good. I adored them (Trey Parker and Matt Stone) before and adore them even more now.

"It's become a cultural lighthouse. It got into the mainstream. Every time you turn on a TV or open a magazine there it is. It's been a great place to be. It's kind of fun. A constant party."

Cleale never thought he'd get there. Born in Houlton, he said, "Stockton's claim to fame is asparagus. Our claim to fame is we have potatoes."

His grandfather, Lewis Potter - a "great" baritone singer in the 1920s - "definitely zeroed in on me (Cleale has three sisters and a brother)," he said. Cleale's mom, Carol, who retired from nursing at age 78, sang and played piano. Ralph, his dad, was an engineer and owned a restaurant.

He started playing trumpet at age 6, but switched to piano at 9 after he "went over the handle bars of my bike and knocked my teeth out. I realized I was much better at singing than playing trumpet.

"I've always been a singer and musician. I thought I was pretty good for Houlton. But, growing up on a potato field, I didn't know I could make it in the outside."

His first move was to the University of Miami, where he chose finance as a major. He added music "for my soul."

A "dream-dropper" professor told Cleale, "If you weren't so lazy you could do this."

During a one-unit music class, he sang songs from "The Story of Edwin Dood," prompting the professor to say, "I don't know who you are, but you should do this. Whatever he said and how he said it, I figured maybe this guy knows what he's talking about."

Next, he auditioned for the Burt Reynolds Theater Company in Jupiter, Fla., singing "On the Street Where You Live," from "My Fair Lady."

It was a success: "He just touched my brain in the right way. I don't know how he knew after one song."

Cleale spent six months at Reynolds' theater. He was chosen to stay as one of 13 students from a group of 300. He learned even more working with Reynolds, Paul Newman, Dom DeLuise and others.

Those experiences led him back to New York. Among his credits are roles in "I Do, I Do" (with Kate Baldwin); "Sondheim on Sondheim" (with Vanessa Williams); "Camelot" (as Sir Lancelot): "Once Upon a Mattress (with Sarah Jessica Parker); and "Giant" (as Bick Benedict).

On July 21, he'll leave "The Book of Mormon" to start preparing a stage version of "The Honeymooners" at San Diego's Globe Theatre. Cleale will portray an executive who hires Ralph Kramden and Ed Norton for a TV commercial: "Chaos ensues," he said.